It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows the important role process technicians play in modern chemical manufacturing to discover the prominence that process technology programs have taken in U.S. and international community colleges and universities. This text is the product of many years of research in the field of process technology and operator training. It is a unique and designed to enhance the learning strategies needed for adult students.

Educators, of course, do their best to provide well-thought-out and illustrated textbooks, classroom lectures, computer-aided simulations and instruction, hands-on activities, bench-top and pilot units, CD/DVD materials, and the like. They take into consideration learning styles and find teaching strategies that work best—that is, how both an instructor and an individual approach the learning process and, given my experience in teaching process technology, there is a marked preference for teachers and students alike to emphasize self-study, of being responsible for this discipline on their own. This is the a pproach I take in this third edition of Process Technology: Equipment and Systems, which has been written with not only the self-responsible learner in mind, but also the diversity of learners considering careers in process technology—women as well as men, new demographic groups, too, including the younger people who will enter the modern workforce and replace the baby boomer generation in record numbers.

As with the previous two editions, Process Technology: Equipment and Systems empowers the adult learner to accomplish the learning process. It covers the basic equipment and technology associated with two courses found in most regionally accredited process technology programs at local community colleges.

What’s New in This Edition

The third edition includes new material on storage tank designs and components. This includes cone roof tanks, open-top, floating, spheres, spheroids, bullets, hemispheroid, bins, and silos. This topic also covers safety aspects like bonding, grounding, cathodic protection, corrosion, pressure rating, and cryogenics. The compressor chapter has been expanded to included two new compressors: scroll and diaphragm. An enhanced compressor system is included with new graphics to teach systems and operations at earlier stages. This same philosophy was applied to chapters covering heat exchangers, cooling towers, boilers, furnaces, reactor, and distillation. Simple graphics allow adult learners to work with simple line-ups, systems, and operations.

Each chapter in the text moves from simple to complex topics. Learning objectives are identified at the front of each chapter. Photographs and line drawings provide a rich visual documentation on which to see the concepts and equipment discussed in the narrative. A summary and a set of openended review questions end each chapter. This text also includes a short list of equipment symbols and diagrams discussed in a specific chapter.

This allows new technicians to gradually build a good understanding of basic symbols and diagrams that are part of the visual lexicon of process technology around the world.